betrayal. Kylie. He hadn’t thought about his teenage crush for years. The girl who’d told him he was going to be a father—only to dump him when she miscarried. And dump him hard, trashing his love and his fervent promises of marriage, support, fidelity. Even stripping him of his right to grieve for the lost baby with her confession that it wasn’t his.
Perhaps his past wasn’t as buried as he believed.
He rubbed a hand over his face and thought back to his last confrontation with Liz, on the day before he’d left. It’d been very cold, very civilised after the preceding months of hot words and hotter, hope-filled reconciliations.
But regardless of the physical passion that flared between them, he hadn’t been able to overcome the obstacle of Liz’s desire to have a family. His argument, that they had something special and didn’t need children to complete their relationship, hadn’t swayed her at all. He’d agreed to give Liz a divorce. He smiled grimly. Looking at it from Liz’s perspective, though, she’d been unable to overcome his entrenched resistance to becoming a father.
Stalemate.
Not that it mattered now. A moment’s careless pleasure and they were going to be parents. Though, in fairness to both of them, they hadn’t been careless, just unlucky. Their usual contraceptive regimen had failed.
Or had Liz been deliberately careless? The muscles of his scalp contracted, pulling at his already tense forehead. He shifted, paced a few steps, trying to shake the unwelcome thought away.
It was irrelevant. He preferred to deal with reality, with the present. And the pregnancy, deliberate or accidental, was a fact that had to be faced squarely. Besides, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths…would she?
Liz ignored the faint tremor in her fingers as she studied Bob Smyth’s chart. His temperature had stabilised during the day. The new antibiotics were obviously doing the job, clearing his lungs, easing his breathing. Microbiology results on the sputum still weren’t back, but there was no sign now of the respiratory distress he’d been admitted with the day before yesterday.
She looked at the patient propped up on the pillows, his face relaxed in sleep, and toyed briefly with the thought of disturbing him. Hard plastic dug into her flesh as she pressed her palms on either side of the chart board. Why couldn’t Bob have been awake? She could have asked him a question, chatted for a few minutes about something, anything. Then she might have felt as though she was here for some purpose.
Instead, she had to admit to herself that she was avoiding the moment when she had to face Jack. Her husband…the father of her baby. Her heart squeezed painfully as she smoothed a hand over her stomach.
The unwilling father of her baby.
She hooked the chart on the end of the bed, her fingers fiddling with the clip for a moment longer. She was hiding, trying to delay the inevitable. Stupid because there was nothing she’d like more than to be able to go home and put her feet up, or perhaps wallow in a bath. If it weren’t for Jack being at the house, she’d probably have left the hospital hours ago.
With a small sigh of defeat, she turned to leave the room. Back at the front desk, she wrote up a request for physiotherapy for Bob and slipped it into a wire basket at the end of the desk.
She felt Jack’s gaze follow her as she went through to hang up her white coat and retrieve her bag from the locker.
‘I need to go to the supermarket on the way home,’ she said when she returned.
Jack fell into step with her. ‘What for?’
His hand came to rest in the curve of her back as he guided her down the corridor. The small, almost protective gesture sent her pulse into overdrive, scattering her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘What do you need to go to the supermarket for?’
‘Oh. Um, yes.’ With an effort she pulled her mind back to the conversation. ‘You didn’t let me know you were coming home so I haven’t done any shopping.’
‘Hmm.’
The noncommittal response, coupled with her reaction to his touch, irritated her. ‘I’m assuming you do want to eat?’
‘Yeah, I do. I’ve got it under control.’
A short time later and they were on the road. Going home…together. Liz’s heart thumped with an upsurge of poignant emotion.
‘Congratulations, by the way.’ She clasped her palms together in her lap, interlaced fingers pressing hard into her knuckles. With her peripheral vision, she saw Jack give her a quick glance before returning his eyes to the road.
‘For?’ He sounded wary.
‘Being appointed brigade captain.’ She caught her breath in the short, tense silence. ‘Why? Is there something else you haven’t you bothered to tell me?’
‘Liz—’
‘Of course, I’d heard rumours. But nobody thought to tell me because they naturally assumed I already knew.’ She stared at his profile, hating the bitterness she could hear in her voice. ‘How do you think that made me feel, Jack?’
He sighed. ‘I thought I’d be home to tell you before the details got out. I should have known better. I’m sorry.’
A muscle jumped along the line of his now clean-shaven jaw. He looked disgustingly fresh and well rested.
And utterly desirable.
While she felt frumpy and unattractive. She wrenched her gaze away, sealing her lips to stop herself from saying anything more.
As soon as the car stopped in the driveway, she scrambled out and opened the back door of the car.
‘Leave those,’ Jack said from the driver’s side as she reached for one of the grocery bags on the back seat.
‘I’m here so I might as well carry something.’ She leaned in and grasped a calico handle.
Moments later, hands clamped around her hips and she was gently but firmly tugged out of the vehicle. The bag she held was removed. Off balance from his touch, she looked up to find hard blue eyes boring into hers. ‘I said leave them. Just…go inside and put your feet up. Do whatever you like, but let someone else be in charge for a while.’
‘Fine, carry them all yourself, then.’ With Jack’s arms spread, one hand on the car door, the other on the roof, his solidly muscled body effectively corralled her. Her heart ricocheted around in her chest cavity. He’d touched her through layers of clothing, but the imprint of his strong hands still lingered on her flesh. Even worse was her body’s wicked yearning to press against him. She curled her fingers around her handbag to stop any possibility of reaching out.
Her eyes fixed on the navy rib of his neckband, she forced her mind to form a coherent sentence. ‘If you’ll get out of my way, I’ll leave you to it.’
Letting go of the car door, he shifted enough for her to brush past.
Not trusting her voice while he was still so close, she shot a tight smile in his direction. Then, mustering all the dignity she could, she walked towards the house.
‘I put the key back in the pot-belly if you need it.’ His voice followed her up the path.
A few moments later he joined her on the veranda, shopping bags in hand. ‘Dinner will be in an hour or so. I’ll call you.’
‘Fine,’ she mumbled, fumbling through the contents of her bag for her keys. She should have just retrieved the spare from the wretched stove. That way she’d have been inside already and out of his disturbing radius.
He shifted his weight, hefting the bags. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his biceps bulging slightly, filling the short sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘Do you want me to get the spare?’
She started at the sound of his voice as her fingers closed around her keyring.